Ask Joe: Why is city forcing artists to paint over mural?

From the Ask Joe file, one of our viewers reached out with a question a mural that was painted last year in downtown Reno but will soon be painted over.

Eli Smith reached out on Facebook to ask why the city is forcing local artists to paint over the mural on Lake street?

Here's what I found out:

That mural was painted on a wall at Lake and Plaza street last year during a mural painting contest. It is a modern cityscape created by a group called Art Spot Reno. They've been told the mural must be painted over because the city claims the group was not given permission to paint on that wall outside the National Bowling Stadium. As a result, the group has organized an event for this coming Saturday to cover up the artwork by painting that wall beige, which will be the color is used to be.

I checked with the city of Reno about this and their spokesperson Jon Humbert says rules are rules. He says the city does not allow the painting of any property without permission and they have to enforce the rules consistently to be fair to everyone.

I checked with Geralda Miller with Art Spot Reno and she told me they thought they had permission to paint that mural but apparently there was some confusion on that. The city says permission was never given. In any case, the mural is going away and if you'd like to help, you can head to down to Lake and Plaza streets on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. to help with the public paint-over.